Young baseball players from Greenville got a chance so many older athletes never even get to experience when they played on national primetime television on ESPN on Monday night.

It was the biggest game yet for the North State 12-year-old All-Stars, and they beat Goodlettsville, Tenn., 4-2 in the Little League Southeast Regional semifinals to continue a historic summer run.

A victory Wednesday — also on ESPN at 3 p.m. — in the winner-take-all regional final will get them to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., where a Greenville club hasn’t been since Tar Heel made the World Series semifinals in 1998.

The players got to do personal introductions before the start of the game. They walked out of the dugout, said their name and their favorite baseball player.

Announcers for the broadcast shared anecdotes about the players and about Greenville. A graphic identified BMX legend Dave Mirra as a Greenville “famous face” and stated that the city is the home to East Carolina University.

Left-hander Thomas Barrett pitched five-plus innings, striking out five batters with two runs allowed, before Matthew Matthijs got the final three outs.

During the third inning, with North State leading 3-1, the story was told about shortstop Carson Hardee giving his glove the nickname of “Caroline.” Then Hardee turned a 6-3 double play to end the inning.

Tennessee scored a run in the top of the first, but Greenville put up three runs in the bottom-half with Drew Fields providing the game’s biggest hit with a two-run, two-out single for a 3-1 edge.

North State will play Tennessee or Georgia on Wednesday in the championship.

Dexter Mcduffie is a multifaceted athlete who shines just as bright on the track as he does on the football field. High school sports prep reporter Jake Keator caught up with Mcduffie to talk about his love for football, and how he used his gold medal performance at the recent 4-A state track…

A gutsy and wild comeback Wednesday afternoon for East Carolina at the American Athletic Conference baseball tournament in Clearwater, Fla., might have assured that the Pirates will be smiling Sunday night when the 16 NCAA regional hosts are announced.

Following a series of delays due to rain over the eastern part of the state, No. 19 seed D.H. Conley softball saw its run in the 3-A state playoffs end in the fourth round as it fell to Western Alamance, 7-2

The Vikings, who ended their regular season with a 14-8 record, made an impressive run as…

The American Athletic Conference baseball tournament began Tuesday morning in Clearwater, Fla., with a high-scoring and slow-moving game that lasted nearly four hours and ended as an 8-4 win for No. 4 seed East Carolina over No. 5 UCF, giving the Pirates 40 wins for the season.

Cam Davis’s grand slam was the deciding factor in No. 2 seed South Central’s 5-2 fourth-round 4-A state playoff victory over No. 3 seeded Heritage on Monday night in a game twice rescheduled due to inclement weather.

Bryant Packard was already set to take an East Carolina-record 32-game hit streak into the American Athletic Conference baseball tournament in Clearwater, Fla., and he added more momentum Monday when he was named AAC player of the year.